City should be open to trade, says London’s deputy mayor for business Rajesh Agrawal

It may have been a bit unusual for London’s deputy mayor for business to urge Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May to ease visa rules for highly skilled Indians going to the UK, when both were in Delhi recently. But Rajesh Agrawal, an entrepreneur turned politician, did just that.

Agrawal, who was himself not in favour of Brexit, has urged his PM to support companies in London and across the UK to access global talent, in the aftermath of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. “If we are to make the most of the opportunities presented by Brexit, then we need to be more open to highly skilled workers from countries, including India, coming to work for British companies.”

Agrawal, 39, grew up in the town of Indore. He moved to London in 2000 with a job at a small foreign exchange company, when he was just 24. Three years on, he was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. “I had great ideas and felt that I could do it better and could do it online,” Agrawal recollected in an interview with ET Magazine during his visit to Delhi. The business plan was simple: individuals and businesses needed to make international payments for which they used banks. Banks were expensive — they charged transfer fees and gave bad exchange rates. “We would provide better exchange rates and better services.” It was a business plan simple enough for him to give up his job. But he soon realised that he needed a bank loan to start the business. The bank refused. “My visa was going to run out in six months. So I went to the same bank and again asked for a £10,000 loan — this time to buy a car.” The loan was approved — of course, he didn’t buy a car, he didn’t even have a licence — but he instead used the money to start RationalFX, along with cofounder, Paresh Davdra.

The car loan was to be his capital and living-off money for the next 18 months. “We just had a laptop and then a printer,” he remembers. The company started growing fast and, between 2006 and 2007, it became one of the fastest growing companies in the UK. But then recession hit the economy. “In the face of the financial crisis, we had to adapt quickly and make the company more business-and corporate-heavy. We were heavily focused on people in the UK buying property in countries such as Spain and France.”

While the business was doing well, in 2011, Agrawal felt the need to do something for a social cause. “Friends would come to me and say they needed to transfer small amounts like £50 to India. We felt that if we offered them an automated platform, not only would it be more efficient but it was also a great social cause,” says Agrawal. So he set up Xendpay, which helps people with small remittances needs. Migrant workers across the world sending money back home to their families became a significant social cause for him, especially because India is the world’s largest receiver of foreign remittances. “We were catering to workers from countries such as Nepal and sub-Saharan Africa, besides India. They work hard overseas to send back money that goes towards children’s education and healthcare for the elderly and it broke my heart when I saw how expensive it was to transfer money from the UK.”

Making a Difference

The business model for Xendpay was very different from the earlier model. People paid what they wanted to, or even nothing at all. Xendpay is the infrastructure platform to help people at the bottom of the pyramid, the business comes in from larger corporate clients. Agrawal has been invited to speak at the UN about this unique model. And it was his interest in social change that has prompted him to support different charities such as the Loomba Foundation for poor widows and their children in India and other countries; The Prince’s Trust, a charity founded by Prince Charles to help young people start businesses and the Cherie Blair Foundation for women. “I love working with young people and have supported many of them in setting up businesses through The Prince’s Trust. We have helped young people from broken families set up enterprises in many countries such as Ethiopia and Rwanda.”

The desire to make a difference also led to his involvement with the campaign of Sadiq Khan, who was running for mayor of London earlier this year. “I got involved as his business advisor because I believed that political and policy change can affect lives of millions of people. To bring change you have to get involved in politics. I campaigned about Khan’s business policies and he won the elections with a huge mandate.” When Brexit followed soon after, Khan invited him to step in as deputy mayor of London for business. “I decided to follow my social conscience to step aside from business and get involved in putting out the message that London is open to trade, investment and talent despite Brexit,” he says. It is in his role as chair of the mayor’s official promotional company London & Partners, that he met investors and entrepreneurs in Indore, Delhi and Mumbai during his recent weeklong trip.